MOVING IMAGE 2012 - 2018

Constructed from 1000 photographs of a waterfall captured using infrared technology, the resulting hyperreal light spectrum and colours revealed are invisible to the human eye, symbolically referencing the notion of the unobserved. Water is the central theme in this moving image work, the waterfall is held in a perpetual loop, flowing and then reversing, moving several times faster than it naturally would. Nature has been manipulated and interrupted – the frenetic pace of the water gives the sense that something is about to happen, the stage is set; the scene a tableau. The use of time-lapse is a way to simultaneously collapse and capture time, engaging the past, present and future in one piece. Waterfall footage is generally slowed down, to create a calm mediative scene, here it has been sped up, a way for the artist to communicate her concern about the intense drought that is currently devastating parts of Australia and the region in which she lives, the Central West of New South Wales.

Captured in Northern NSW 2018

Wildēornes Bodytime-lapse film, sound10:34min 2017

Wildēornes (Old English): a land inhabited only by wild animals. Wildēorness Body reflects the inherent loss and uncertainty we now face for the natural environment, while simultaneously being a personal acknowledgement of the artist embracing her mortality. Swathed in a Victorian 1880s chantilly lace mourning shawl, the artist lay on a large mirror that reflects the sky and the canopy of trees above. Through the symbolism of the mourning shawl and the endurance of holding a pose over time, Welch aims to reveal the symbiotic relationship humans have with the natural world, and the fragility and strength of both. Welch spent several weeks at BigCi artist residency near Wollemi National Park where she researched and created this work.

In the Wildēornes Land – Chantilly Wildēornes – swamp the mourning shawl is hovering above the surface of the water, transmuting a zoomorphic bird like quality as it interacts with its reflection. The shawl floats, swoops and turns as it emerges in and out of the frame, contorting, quivering; revealing delicateness and imperfection. Reflections captured in nature appear throughout Welch’s work, the natural surfaces acting like mirrors as they reflect light, creating illusionary representations of what they replicate. In this single channel video the actual landscape is juxtaposed against the illusory landscape reflected in the water with both existing simultaneously – parallel – as scenes within a photograph; an illusion. The skyscape within the skyscape becomes a double translation, a hall of mirrors that centralises the interpretation of the viewer.

Filmed at Ganguddy Swamp 2017

East Westtime-lapse film, sound 3:30min 2015

East West captures an antique mirror placed on the ground to reflect the sky as it transitions from day to night. Constructed from 3000 photographs taken over a twelve- hour period, the film acknowledges the sky as an enduring navigational device, historically used by humans to traverse the terrain of the earth from east to west, a tool to map, contest and claim. The clouds and stars reflected travel across the mirror forming a hypnotic sequence, encapsulating the recoded time (past), viewed in current time (present), while creating a space for contemplation (future)

Captured at Dark Corner 2015

Lamenttime-lapse film 5:20min 2012

Lament records the deconstruction and reconstruction of a lit chandelier. Unlike my photographic work where the chandelier hangs above the landscapes of the interior of eastern Australia, making claim, here the chandelier is extracted, isolated and contained. The film records the deconstruction of the chandelier; each crystal being removed piece by piece. This chronicled decoding is a sorrowful lament and acknowledgment of the cultural and ecological loss that is now etched in the landscape. The imperial imperatives represented by the chandelier in the Illumination photographs are unravelling – crystal cultural threads are disappearing piece by piece. The reemergence and reconstruction of the chandelier in reverse suggests the relentless persistence of past ideologies on the perception of landscape and country in Australia today. Lament plays on a loop, cyclically revolving in search of resolution.